Martha McCaughey, author of Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women's Self-Defense, is Associate Professor and Director of Women’s Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Appalachian State University. Neal King, author of Heroes in Hard Times: Cop Action Movies in the U.S. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Belmont University in Nashville.

"Too violent? Too sexy? Too passive? Too tough? The first book-length treatment of violent women in the movies, Reel Knockouts aims to provoke engagement and launch debate. What do women want these days? Who wants violent women? How? Why? From Hong Kong to Hollywood, contributors track criminals and tail cops, scrutinising the mixed messages proffered by noir, horror, action, activist, and even porn pix in light of contemporary concerns with violence and the representation of violence. Throughout, political passions prime interdisciplinary insights: beware the Jesse Helms of America! Violent women = unnatural power and/or unruly sex? HA! A 'wanna' read." -Christine Holmlund, Associate Professor of French, Film, and Women's Studies and Head of Cinema Studies, University of Tennessee "Trumpeting itself as the first book-length treatment of violent women in the movies, this anthology has ass-kicking pretensions of its own, declaring its intent to slap down the girls-with-guns gauntlet in front of feminists and film theorists alike... the editors' tough-talking challenge to readers to take the screen's mean heroines seriously as pop-cultural players is laudable ..." Sight and Sound

• Acknowledgments What's a Mean Woman like You Doing in a Movie like This? (Neal King and Martha McCaughey) Part I: Genre Films "If Her Stunning Beauty Doesn't Bring You to Your Knees, Her Deadly Drop Kick Will": Violent Women in the Hong Kong Kung Fu Film (Wendy Arons) If Looks Could Kill: Power, Revenge, and Stripper Movies (Jeffrey A. Brown) The Gun and the Badge: Hollywood and the Female Lawman (Carol M. Dole) Caged Heat: The (R)evolution of Women-in-Prison Films (Suzanna Danuta Walters) Sharon Stone's (An)Aesthetic (Susan Knobloch) Part II: New Bonds and New Communities Sometimes Being a Bitch Is All a Woman Has to Hold On To: Memory, Haunting, and Revenge in Dolores Claiborne (Laura Grindstaff) Waiting to Set It Off: African American Women and the Sapphire Fixation (Kimberly Springer) The Gun-in-the-Handbag, a Critical Controversy, and a Primal Scene (Barbara L. Miller) Action Heroines and Female Viewers: What Women Have to Say (Tiina Vares) Imagined Violence/Queer Violence: Representations of Rage and Resistance (Judith Halberstam) About the Contributors

Martha McCaughey, author of Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women's Self-Defense, is Associate Professor and Director of Women’s Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Appalachian State University. Neal King, author of Heroes in Hard Times: Cop Action Movies in the U.S. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Belmont University in Nashville.

"Too violent? Too sexy? Too passive? Too tough? The first book-length treatment of violent women in the movies, Reel Knockouts aims to provoke engagement and launch debate. What do women want these days? Who wants violent women? How? Why? From Hong Kong to Hollywood, contributors track criminals and tail cops, scrutinising the mixed messages proffered by noir, horror, action, activist, and even porn pix in light of contemporary concerns with violence and the representation of violence. Throughout, political passions prime interdisciplinary insights: beware the Jesse Helms of America! Violent women = unnatural power and/or unruly sex? HA! A 'wanna' read." -Christine Holmlund, Associate Professor of French, Film, and Women's Studies and Head of Cinema Studies, University of Tennessee "Trumpeting itself as the first book-length treatment of violent women in the movies, this anthology has ass-kicking pretensions of its own, declaring its intent to slap down the girls-with-guns gauntlet in front of feminists and film theorists alike... the editors' tough-talking challenge to readers to take the screen's mean heroines seriously as pop-cultural players is laudable ..." Sight and Sound

• Acknowledgments What's a Mean Woman like You Doing in a Movie like This? (Neal King and Martha McCaughey) Part I: Genre Films "If Her Stunning Beauty Doesn't Bring You to Your Knees, Her Deadly Drop Kick Will": Violent Women in the Hong Kong Kung Fu Film (Wendy Arons) If Looks Could Kill: Power, Revenge, and Stripper Movies (Jeffrey A. Brown) The Gun and the Badge: Hollywood and the Female Lawman (Carol M. Dole) Caged Heat: The (R)evolution of Women-in-Prison Films (Suzanna Danuta Walters) Sharon Stone's (An)Aesthetic (Susan Knobloch) Part II: New Bonds and New Communities Sometimes Being a Bitch Is All a Woman Has to Hold On To: Memory, Haunting, and Revenge in Dolores Claiborne (Laura Grindstaff) Waiting to Set It Off: African American Women and the Sapphire Fixation (Kimberly Springer) The Gun-in-the-Handbag, a Critical Controversy, and a Primal Scene (Barbara L. Miller) Action Heroines and Female Viewers: What Women Have to Say (Tiina Vares) Imagined Violence/Queer Violence: Representations of Rage and Resistance (Judith Halberstam) About the Contributors